water.
New, strange thoughts run through his mind as something suddenly happens. He feels the rope around his waist tighten. He has forgotten that he knotted the long line attached to the life belt around his body. It seems to be tangled in something. He is being dragged to the side. It is impossible to resist, he has no strength left. His slack body is hauled inexorably around a pillar and then up through the roof hatch. The back of his head thumps against something, one shoe comes off, and then he is out in the black water. He is carried upwards while the bus continues without him into the depths, Lydia inside the glowing cage as it drifts silently to the bottom of the lake.
Chapter 108
Simone, Erik, and Benjamin return to a grey Stockholm beneath a sky that is already dark. The air is heavy with rain, and the city is enveloped in a purplish mist. Everywhere, colourful lights are shining, on Christmas trees and garland-looped balcony railings. Advent stars glow in virtually every window. Santa and his elves are everywhere.
The taxi driver who drops them at the Birger Jarl Hotel has his Santa hat on. He waves at them gloomily in the rear-view mirror; they notice he even has a plastic Santa on his roof.
Simone glances at the lobby and the dark windows of the hotel restaurant, and says it feels odd to be staying in a hotel when they’re only a few hundred feet away from home.
“But I really don’t want to go back to our apartment,” she says.
“No, of course not,” Erik agrees.
“Not ever again.”
“Me neither,” says Benjamin.
“What shall we do?” Erik asks. “How about the cinema?”
“I’m hungry,” Benjamin says quietly.
By the time the helicopter arrived at the hospital in Umea, the bullet had gone straight through Erik’s left shoulder muscle, causing only superficial damage to the outer part of his upper arm. Once they stabilized his condition, he underwent surgery. Afterwards, he shared a room with Benjamin, who had been admitted for observation and rehydration, so his medication could be regulated. After only one day in the hospital, Benjamin started to ask about going home.
The psychologist assigned to assess Benjamin’s condition seemed unable to grasp the level of danger to which Benjamin had been exposed. After talking to Benjamin for forty-five minutes, she met with Erik and Simone and blandly announced that the boy seemed fine, under the circumstances; they should just keep an eye on him and give him time.
Did the woman just want to reassure them? His parents realized that Benjamin was going to need real help; they could already see him searching among his memories, as if he had already decided to ignore some of them, and they sensed that if he were left alone he would close up around what had happened like bedrock around a fossil.
“I know two really good specialists in adolescent psychology,” said Erik. “We’ll call them as soon as we get back to Stockholm.”
“Good.” Simone shuddered.
“And how are
“There’s this hypnotist I’ve heard about,” Simone said.
“Just be careful of him.”
“I will.” Simone smiled.
“But seriously,” Erik said. “All of us are going to need to work through this.”
She nodded, and her expression grew very thoughtful.
“Little Benjamin,” she said softly.
Erik went and lay down again in the bed next to Benjamin’s, and Simone sat on a chair between the two. They looked at their son, lying there so pale and thin. They never tired of gazing at his face, as if he were their newborn baby.
“How are you feeling, little man?” Erik asked him tentatively.
Benjamin stared out the window. The darkness outside turned the glass into a vibrating reflection as the wind pushed and tapped at the pane.
Chapter 109
Benjamin had just scrambled up onto the roof of the bus when he’d heard the second shot. He’d slipped and almost fallen into the water. At the same moment he had seen Simone in the darkness on the edge of the huge hole in the ice. She’d yelled to him that the bus was sinking and he had to get onto the ice. Spotting the orange life belt bobbing in the black water behind the bus, he’d jumped, grabbed hold of it, slipped it over his arms, and kicked toward the edge of the ice, even as he’d felt his legs growing numb. Lying flat on the ice, Simone had reached out toward the freezing water to find his hand and pulled him out, then dragged him a little way from the edge. She’d taken off her jacket and wrapped it around him, hugging him and telling him that a helicopter was on the way.
Benjamin sobbed. “Dad’s still in there!”
The bus had sunk quickly, disappearing beneath the surface with a groan, and they had been left in darkness. They could hear the splash of the churned-up water and the clucking of huge air bubbles, the sheets of ice shifting back into place. Simone held Benjamin tightly, shivering, trying to keep from screaming. All of a sudden, he had been yanked out of her arms. He’d tried to get up but had slipped and fallen. The line attached to the life belt lay taut across the ice, running down into the water, and Benjamin was being pulled towards the hole in the ice. He was struggling, sliding on his bare feet, and screaming. Simone had grabbed hold of him, and together they slithered inexorably toward the edge.
“It’s Dad!” Benjamin had suddenly shouted. “He had the rope around his waist!”
Simone’s face suddenly became hard and resolute. She grabbed hold of the life belt, hooked both arms through it, and dug in her heels. Benjamin grimaced with pain as they edged closer and closer to the water. The line was so tight it made a singing sound as it scraped over the edge of the ice, like a bow being drawn across the taut string of a violin. Then suddenly the tug-of-war shifted: it was still hard work, but they were able to move backwards, step by step, away from the water. And then there was almost no resistance at all. They hauled Erik up through the opening in the roof, and now he floated free of the doomed vehicle. A few seconds later, Simone was able to drag him up onto the ice. He lay there face down, coughing and breathing hard as a red stain spread beneath him.
When the police and paramedics arrived at Jussi’s house, they found Joona lying in the snow with a provisional pressure bandage around his thigh, his gun trained on a bellowing, handcuffed Marek. Jussi’s frozen corpse lay at the bottom of the porch steps with an axe in the chest. One survivor was found in the house: Annbritt had been hiding in the wardrobe in the bedroom. She was covered in blood, curled up behind the clothes like a child. The paramedics carried her out to the helicopter on a stretcher and gave her emergency treatment during the flight.
Two days later, Mountain Rescue divers went down into the lake to recover Lydia’s body. The bus stood solidly on its six wheels at a depth of two hundred feet, as if it had just stopped to pick up some passengers. One diver entered through the front door and shone his torch around the empty seats. The gun was on the floor at the back of the aisle. It was only when he directed the beam upward that the diver saw Lydia. She lay with her back pressed against the ceiling of the bus, her arms dangling down and her neck bowed. The skin on her face had already begun
